Let’s look into nourishing vitality for mutual benefit, which is qigong.
The question comes up, what is chi kung, chi gong, qi-gong, qigong, pronounced ‘chee gung’, with soft vowels and consonants. Qi gong is the vitality of friends with benefits, the ultimate friend experience, because all we do is mutual benefit. We are married to experience, and when we no longer nourish the fundamental root, the tree dies. The idea of altruism degenerates unto unsustainable pathological altruism. We help each other best by nurturing our fundamental bio spirit, which is the give and take of the world of being. There is no push without a shove, all things relate to one another in associations of mutual benefit which is nourishment. Formerly in alphabeticalized Chinese it was called ch’i kung, today called qigong. The two Chinese characters from an etymology standpoint, qi and gong. Qi or chi refers to rice and steam, hence nourishment, and steam heat, fire. Rice nourishes the body as in people growing food, then preparing the rice by cooking with steam. Qi or chi has come to mean from this, the vital energy of not only the body but the world, big body bioregion, little body our actual human body. Gong derives from a carpenter’s square and a plough. From an etymology perspective of the Chinese character, a human tool art carpenter’s square and plough, grasped by the hand, Gong, actual work of doing something to create something, achieve something. So the two characters, chi today refers mostly to vital energy of nourishment and the work of a carpenter’s square establishing correct angle in building and the plough which prepares the earth for planting, so both human arts connected to achievement, necessary for living. Like gongfu or kung-fu, you might have heard of kungfu. Or watched kung fu action adventure cinema movies with Bruce Lee. It may be surprising to learn both kung fu and qigong, the word ‘gong’ or ‘kung’, both the same Chinese ideogram, refer to skill, study, diligent work, achievement and practice as in an, art form like ballet, or painting, or getting a university or nursing degree, or taking childbirth classes and learning to prepare for childbirth and take care of your first baby, or dressage and riding with horses, and have nothing to do with kicking someone in the head or using an elbow to smash someone’s nose. For some reason it’s much more entertaining in certain circles to smash someone’s nose, learn how to deliver a traumatic brain injury, and watch them crumple to the floor, than take lamaze classes at La Leche league.
What does qigong mean? Well ‘qi’ I define as vital nourishment, and ‘gong’, is diligent effort, resulting in mutual benefit. So qigong means most of all vital nourishment work leading to mutual benefit. Within that vital nourishment work are several fundamental positive prejudices, pre-judgements. Usually prejudgement is encouraged negatively as a spontaneous kind of bad knowing. Yet the basis of all learning is making assumptions and quick judgements. You smell smoke and think, I better investigate. What’s that smell? What’s burning? Did I leave the stove on? Where is the smoke coming from? Wood for cooking bbq or something dangerous? You see a flame and immediately remember from past experience, flame is hot. So to make quick judgements is a good thing, it is intelligence. When you buy a new gadget it comes in a box, wrapped in lots of plastic, and somewhere in the box is an owners manual, instructions that tells you how to assemble your new gadget, maintain it and so on. Our own lives don’t have good owner’s manuals, although we are increasingly wrapped in plastic. Some of the official owners manual for our lives have a lot of questionable information.
The first prejudice of qigong is that our life at this time, under these conditions means being embodied, rooted in a human body, therefore a lot of the work of being a human being is keeping a human body, is about nourishment. The idea of nourishment is right nourishment as mutual benefit. Mutual benefit means vital nourishment. Obviously plants are living things and the analogy of caring for a plant applies to qigong as working on vital nourishment. Plants mainly live outside in the greater world, so you may have a large pine forest in the mountains. Along the watershed you have a riparian zone with deciduous trees. All these plants in the forest are adapted to their ecosystem of their local bioregion. People have an innate reflexive trait to care for things and nourish them. People like to care for beautiful things. Within all these tendencies to nourish are relationships of mutual benefit. So someone may care for and nourish chickens. Besides the beauty of the chickens and the continual chicken frolicking and play there is nursing them through illness, hot summers, cold winters. The chickens eating insects, using kitchen scraps, provide manure to enrich the soil, all mutual benefits. There is the meat and eggs, another mutual benefit of nourishment. With plants of course there is much the same mutual benefit with nourishing as with gardening. We have vegetables and fruit to nourish our body. Healing herbs elderberry, mullein, angelica, echinacea, rose hips. Gardening provides nourishment. Trees nourish with shade, wind brakes. Flowers nourish the eyes, the mutual benefit scent of blossom. We can bring plants inside our living space to nourish. We can live in a place like hot dry desert Tucson and grow, pine trees like Pinus brutia eldarica, the Afgan mediterranean pine, with red shaggy bark and twin needles that do well in the heat of the south west. So we can through our skill bring beautiful things into our space for mutual benefit. When we have a house plant like the herbal remedio english ivy Hedera helix growing inside we have the nourishment of beauty and the mutual benefit of removing harmful indoor pollutants like NO2, airbourne mold, formaldehyde, benzene. Caring for english ground ivy as a house plant also provides the mutual benefit of veriditas with the powerful mutual benefits of its herbal medicine for the respiratory system. In traditional Chinese medicine TCM, english ground ivy is known as chang chun teng. It dispels wind, dries damp, and supports the liver, energizing the liver, spleen and lung meridians. In both western herbalism and TCM it is used to address cough with mucus, and although an antispasmodic itencourages a productive cough. Chang chun teng or english ground ivy is in the Aralieacea family with other plants with affinity to the respiratory system like spikenard. TCM uses a variety of herbs, so it would be highly unusual to use a single herb alone. Herbs are always used together in a formula of mutual benefit nourishment called Jun Chen Zuo Shi, which is known as emperor, minister, assistant and courier.
An example of this idea in simplified form scientifically researched would be the EMA’s, European Medicines Agency formula tested to be effective containing the commonly available herbs marshmallow, a demulcent, london rocket, a hot spicy warming mustard weed herb, and english ivy used together in a cough, winter cold sinus formula. There is a strong tendency to investigate herbs calling it ‘science’, or ‘scientific’, or ‘peer reviewed’, for a standardized single element chemical constituent to quantify. In the so called universal science approach, much of the documented testing is within this single, isolated, to use the western term, freed approach. The emphasis is always on freedom, freed substances from their matrix. Thing vs process. The mutual benefit vital nourishment approach at a baseline has mutual benefit of living vitality in the whole without a strong thing-ness component. So herbs are not substitutes for single component pill medicine. Herbs are living plants with a vital nourishment mutual benefit. During the recent criterion event of 2019-2021 for instance the following herbs used together in a bundle were effective: marshmallow Althaea officinalis, myrrh Commiphora molmol, licorice Glycyrrhiza glabra, english ivy Hedera helix, ginger and elderberry Sambucus nigra. These herbs do not fit into the scientific model of testing. They can not be counted and measured. They can not be quantified. You can not in vitro test. You can not stick 6 different herbs in a test tube so the formula simply can not exist. Just as the disease is a thing, so the disease can only be treated with a substance. In the vital nourishment mutual benefit approach, the disease is a process not a thing. So it’s addressed as it presents and therefore the same treatment could be used for different substance based viewpoints.
Nicolas Culper writes of ground ivy, english ivy, Hedera helix, in his 1550 english herbal, “Government and virtues. It is an herb of Venus, and therefore cures the diseases she causes by sympathy, and those of Mars by antipathy; you may usually find it all the year long except the year be extremely frosty: it is quick, sharp, and bitter in taste, and is thereby found to be hot and dry; a singular herb for all inward wounds, exulcerated lungs, or other parts, either by itself, or boiled with other the like herbs; and being drank, in a short time it easeth all griping pains, windy and choleric humours in the stomach, spleen or belly; helps the yellow jaundice, by opening the stoppings of the gall and liver, and melancholy, by opening the stoppings of the spleen; expelleth venom or poison, and also the plague; it provokes urine and women's courses; the decoction of it in wine drank for some time together, procures ease to them that are troubled with the sciatica, or hip-gout: as also the gout in hands, knees or feet; if you put to the decoction some honey and a little burnt alum, it is excellently good to gargle any sore mouth or throat, and to wash the sores and ulcers in the privy parts of man or woman; it speedily helpeth green wounds, being bruised and bound thereto. The juice of it boiled with a little honey and verdigrease, doth wonderfully cleanse fistulas, ulcers, and stayeth the spreading or eating of cancers and ulcers; it helpeth the itch, scabs, wheals, and other breakings out in any part of the body. The juice of celandine, field-daisies, and ground-ivy clarified, and a little fine sugar dissolved therein, and dropped into the eyes, is a sovereign remedy for all pains, redness, and watering of them; as also for the pin and web, skins and films growing over the sight; it helpeth beasts as well as men. The juice dropped into the ears, doth wonderfully help the noise and singing of them, and helpeth the hearing which is decayed. It is good to tun up with new drink, for it will clarify it in a night, that it will be the fitter to be drank the next morning; or if any drink be thick with removing, or any other accident, it will do the like in a few hours.” (Nicolas Culpeper 1550 from Culpeper’s Complete Herbal)
“When heaven is about to impose a great responsibility on a person, it first tests biospirit exhausting will muscles and bones; then it stimulates, strengthens and supplies his incompetencies.” Mengzi You must find a way to break through difficulties and there you will experience a brighter world called wild herb ways. The power that moves the body comes from the center of the body. The hips move the shoulders, the hands link to the feet and the elbows to the knees.The sun and moon though beyond us are among and within us, the brightness of sun shining, the coolness of moon retreating yet nourishing like the dark fluid in the kidney. Regardless of who we are we must purify and cultivate everyday, both young and old must engage in this process. Sarcasm, laughing at others, envy and suspicion lead to negative results. When we stand on the backs of others to gain a higher position we should then prepare to fall. Better to seek out the lowness where water flows and prepare quietly. Water though soft when gathered together yields profound power to carve the deepest canyon through hardest rock mountain. Loud voices will only single you out to be the first to fall. The lush veriditas of spring with elaborate bird songs begins at the timing of dropping leaves in autumn when the energy of earth goes downward and we gather medicinal roots. It’s been said that the genius of nature wild herb ways being self-thus, as it is, revealing itself and replicating, rejuvenating wild herb ways is part of the primal pattern and is freely given as a way of understanding.
Each day, week and month the big clock known as ‘big bear’ turns. The big bear turns a revolution in 24 hours, and another kind movement in a year. So we have the same mechanism: a daily 24 hour clock and a yearly clock. We have to respect both clocks as people. In the dark sky the seven stars are visible as the big dipper plough, part of ursus major, great big bear. The central pivot point pole star, Polaris, is the holder of the purple celestial pool from which the qi of sky descends and rises and descends as earth flow, turning on the celestial wheel. For that reason the idea of celestial heavenly marriage was formed between man and woman, by their association together, children, by children family and by family kindred, by kindred, nation. Through observation of patterns of change in people, plants, place, mountain, desert and prairie we learn to understand the movement of life in the changes. Movement of life in the body in order to prepare to move with change, create resilience by acquiring and storing the vital force in the body. If we call breath a key archetype complex as a process in our small body respiration then it follows that regardless of how we view respiration we can’t go against the breathing in and out complex, and expect to live. We breath in and out. If like a petulant terrible two toddler on an ego trip tantrum we decide to hold our breath, to resist parental authority, what happens? Maybe we hold our breath for a while, our face turns red, we pass out or get light headed, and return to breathing. Because regardless of viewpoint, on breathing, to live we must breathe. The same vital force that moves through the prairie in spring moves through mountain in spring, moves through us. When spring is observed in the mountain and prairie it is because already at the yuletide season the process has begun to grow deep inside the earth. So people make promises deep in winter at the end od December as New Year’s resolutions. At night we rest and sleep we don’t buy and sell under lights 24/7 because this is only addictive behaviour, criminal activity and so on go on in the night. Men and women loose their husbands and wives in these night escapades. Demons and hungry ghosts prowl about in the night hours for this reason we respect day and night and don’t attempt to abuse others through the misuse of these cycles. The stars and constellations moving through the night across the ecliptic heavenly sphere, horizon to horizon are a form of writing upon the night tablet. When we wake in the morning the plants and animals are following the directions written in the night sky. We are asleep so we don’t see the stars writing on the morning sky, but it is there as above so below. The resistance of modern life to follow natural process diurnal flow dark light places strain on the organ system and disease. So the time within the modern cityscape lit up by fossil fuel is duplicating the summer solstice 24/7 365, like every day is fourth of July to use the modern holiday term. The small body cannot sustain this petulant burning candles at both ends late June solstice time day in day out, all year round. What was written by the stars will be carried out as law process. When you see vermillion fly catcher, western cardinal, robin return you can see the visible plan and take appropriate action in appropriate time. The book of stars is local to place. People carry books but many of these books are meant to be open notebooks, not finished books. The stars are still writing every day. So to cling to the same unchanging book, not written with respect to time and place book and read it ad nauseum is to bind oneself to an unhanging book in a world of continuous change. We are equally systems of change. We adapt to changing conditions by changing. The essential vital force can be seen by observing closely with full attention the natural process of change in our small body and within the greater body that we are part. As above so below, as within so without. What happens in the seasons unfolds according to its intrinsic nature. The symbol of springtime is the first flower of spring candytufts in the mustard family. Unfolding red sappy cottonwood buds and emerging leaves are another symbol of spring to remember, cherish and give thanks. The leaf, flower and bud are both leaf flower and buds and symbols of the same process of unfoldment. “By using the symbols, Sage People saw all the spirit forces in the world we live in. The symbols determine forms and appearances and connect all things.” (The Great Treatise section of the Book of Change) We can use the symbols of sages and we can actually see as sages saw by seeing with the eyes of sages, feeling with the heart of sages, listening with the ears of sages. There are different herbs and trees in different situations. There are many different remedies to nourish biospirit. The genius wild herb ways is person, plant, place mountain, river and prairie. People, plants, places and prairie have mixed and mingled throughout time. Whenever and wherever this mixing occurred there was an emerging genius intelligence known understood as wild herb ways, as the self thus, self arranging patterns inherent in life to renew life. Whether in Aspen forests, oak groves, pine forests, hard wood deciduous forest, or among mesquite, paloverde, gobernadora, button brush, and cottonwood trees in the thorn scrub flatland, the vital self thus, self replicating intelligence is there, was there and will be there. Regardless of knowing or not knowing whenever there is sincerity and need, asking and receiving will occur. All the while learning about wild herb ways local to specific place and situation, you must increase the life force called qi. Most people do not and can not live in a generic place. We live in specific place. The way to hear the beauty of sound as music is in the silence between the tones. The way to see the beauty of colour in a painting is in the blankness of the canvas. Otherwise there is a cacophony of sound and a confusion of colour. For that reason loudness in music becomes political and brashness in colour becomes ugliness. Both of these tire the mind and restrict the body leading to illness and disease in the organs. Therefore one must not search too hard for perfect forms in far away places because the perfect form is a useful form. The perfect form becomes perfect in its utility to the user. What is found immediately in front of one's face will be most beneficial. There is a thought and misunderstanding that you should cultivate Asian or Chinese Qi, nothing could be further from the truth. The qi you must seek is the resilient life of your biospirit. Likewise where you are right now is the miraculous promised land of your here and now. You can no more find yourself over there than you could find a ring that slipped off your finger while washing dishes in the kitchen sink by traveling to China. It makes no sense to look for the ring you lost in your kitchen sink washing dishes by searching in China. You must stop immediately, search the kitchen sink, quickly and carefully before the ring is washed down the drain. Whatever the steps to be taken you must take them, walking forward with each footstep. Whatever is the length of your stride that will be your footstep. Where your foot touches the ground is as important as the length of your stride. While the sage uses symbols to see, you must also see the spirit forces in the world around you. If conditions are right perhaps the symbols the sage used will allow you to see deeper and develop connections, yet the most important part can never be the symbols the sage used. The most important part is your connection. A situation that denies the view in front of your face will inevitably lead to illness because our lives are our own personal life and the vitality necessary to sustain our lives must emerge from our own people, otherwise what happens is exploitation and slavery.
Whenever a westerner hears about the amazing enlightened east , China, Asia there’s a kind of honeymoon stage of unrealistic expectations within the belief system. Because at some point the question comes up, if China and its Asian wisdom is so superior to our own wisdom traditions, then why do these seemingly discordant events come up. I don’t want to pull the human rights card, or even the fish market bio-lab pandemic card, because it’s too hard to evaluate. You can look up the history. Instead, let's look at mercury, an interesting heavy metal that accumulates in the tissue of all life forms, amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals, fish and humans. In the body it doesn’t do much good. Although in east and west it was used as a kind of heroic, last ditch anti-microbial, anti-biotic. Mercury though is too antibiotic, too anti, too against life to promote health, to be useful. Precisely due to its bizarre super heavy dense nature it accumulates. It also accumulates because biological systems have no history of encounter with mercury to have developed any systemic process for elimination of mercury. Your body for instance uses many metals within metabolic process. It uses these metals because they were encountered and pulled within the realm of biological process. Iron in hemoglobin for oxygen uptake. Chromium by the hormonal system the pancreas and liver for blood glucose regulation in and out of cells, for energy storage. Sodium is used for water transport across cell membranes. Plants have similar uses for these same metals, also known to us as minerals precisely because they exist in soluble forms in the soil, taken up by plant roots. The roots take these substances into the leaf and stem. We eat the plants and so have developed roughly an equivalent usage, a corresponding usage has developed across the life continuum of bacterial, fungi, plant, animal symbiosis. We are in some ways plant-people associations. There is no such use for mercury across biological process, that I know of. Every exposure to mercury builds up like the frog in gradually temperature increasing water. At first as the temperature rises from cold to warm the frog has no perception of change. If you placed a living frog in hot, heated, boiling water the frog would immediately instinctively by using its powerful legs leap to safety out of the boiling heated water . Mercury was like 18th and 19th century chemo therapy and radiation treatment for oncology. Mercury as it accumulates in the human body, decreases life potential, decreases vitality, creates cognitive decline and neurological damage in many ways irreversible. Mercury as a toxic heavy metal kills.
So why is, let’s call it, increasing mercury encounters occurring in the biome where before it did not occur? The reason is because mercury is being brought up, out of the earth where it was hidden and it’s being exposed. Mercury is being uncovered and broadcast and spread. Gold has for instance been highly valued throughout human history. That ancient gold was something like a fossil gold, often called placer gold, free gold. Free because it exists as nuggets and tiny flecks. Free because it exists not bonded to other materials. Lying exposed in the sand and sediment streambanks of moving water from exposed mountain deposits. Placer gold, or free gold is distinctly mainly non-reactive, a stable element. As population increased more people wanted more gold. The stable, non reactive, free placer gold deposits were mined essentially via gravity. Gold as a heavy non-toxic heavy metal separated and sinks due to its density and heavy weight. So panning for gold in streams. As these easy accessible sources for gold were used up other ways of sorting gold from lower density dug up ore bodies were exhausted. The technique of crushing low density ore, crushing the rock and soaking the crushed rock in a mercury settling pond was expanded to huge industrial levels.The technology of gold smelters was expanded to open pit mines visible from space satellites. In the american west, much of the US state of Nevada is one giant immense low density gold ore body. These giant mercury laced settling ponds are seen across Nevada. Likewise as the search for minerals like copper expanded to open pit mines, miles across, it was also found that minerals like silver, platinum, gold and mercury were also present in the crushed rock from these open pit mines. So much so that in most of these open pit copper mines, the ore bodies highest monetary value yield in an open pit mine is from incidental gold. The value of gold is $2000 per ounce while copper’s monetary value is $0.23 per ounce, 23 cents per ounce vs $2000 dollars per ounce. The ratio of value gold to copper is 8700:1. These sources of hidden buried mercury are increasingly dug up and exposed in the process of smelting metals and set afloat in the air like death pollen to circulate on the prevailing wind.
To get back to this very random take on the wisdom of China of Asia and its rooted respect for the Dao, for nature and toxic mercury. How someone falls in love with this smorgasbord of Asian wisdom, falls in love with Dao, with Buddha, with the wisdom of the east and gets into this goo goo eyed lovey, dovey head over heels honeymoon stage of worship of everything Asian, everything Dao. Falls in love with this amazing body of wisdom only to find the people born into and steeped in that tradition are leaving it? Leaving their own Asian nature tradition like the proverbial frog leaping out of boiling water. Well within that honeymoon are the powerful observations, like questions. If China is so superior, why then are we seeing this influx of Chinese asian people choosing to leave China and settle in places like Buffalo New York? Or ten’s of thousands of Indian sub-continent Hindu’s from India choosing to leave everything Asian, Indian for Pittsburgh Pennsylvania? Well the answer is complex. Getting back to random mercury. China has chosen coal powered electricity generation, burning dug up extracted coal. Mining coal, burning coal on such a huge level that the air floating across the Pacific ocean falls on the Pacific coast of Canada, British Columbia, and America depositing the mined, contained in coal, mercury on the ground falling as mercury laden acid rain, taken up by plant roots, eaten as grass by cattle, the mercury in grain, milk, meat. So that mercury along with mercury from mining, metal smelting, combustion engine gasoline burning increases and accumulates year by year in the long lived mammal bodies of human beings. Who as they age experience higher and higher levels of cognitive decline as they age. What people are calling alzheimer's cognitive decline with aging is in most cases mercury exposure and a toxic result of a chemical low level soup of multiple toxic chemicals. One of the biggest reasons Asian’s mention for leaving their Asian nations is environmental pollution, poverty, decreased standard of living due to the extreme industrialization and crowded living situation, and none of these are reflective of love of nature, they are in fact a profound cultural defect of adaptation.
He stood and walked beneath cottonwood trees, Populus fremontii, fremont cottonwood, with cordate, heart shaped leaves. Sitting on fallen, grey furrowed, hollow branch trunks bleached in the sun. In such a place you can grasp the 8 forms of the earlier diagram map. When facing the east rising sun he understood sky heaven on his right south, and earth to his left, north. Above was the sky with sun, moon, blue sky, light, this was heaven sky, sky heaven, palms of the hand fire. While the sun ruled the sky was warm, bright, shining. Below was moist wetness. The moist wetness below is dark and cool. Below the ground the roots went deeply down and this was understood as earth. In the dark cool moist place below grew roots. In the bright warm dry place above ground grew the leaves and branches. So he understood, sky south above, and earth below north, as two points on the compass. The compass is a round wheel circle that turns and shifts although the form we hold on paper is a symbol, is a memory of that turning. The hands and feet are like roots, leaves and branches. Today we walk on two legs, then two feet, yet our feet have the inner form of hands, and our hands have the inner form of feet. Also understand without opposition, the hands do many things. One time the hands build and another time the hands destroy what was built. They are the same hands. The hands are aligned to the Lao gong at the center of the fleshy palm, palms of the hand, as leaves and branches aligned east with fire at the rising sun. The earth aligned to the soles of the feet, as roots, aligned north with the yong quan bubbling spring at the fleshy sole of the foot,, aligned with flowing nourishing water in the west.
The circular wheel is set in motion through eight things of the early pattern. Sky, wind, wood, Flowing water, mountain, earth, thunder, fire, standing water/ marsh lake, returning to sky heaven in a sequence. When the sun in the sky set below the horizon it became cool and dark. They could see the leaves of the cottonwood trembling, shaking in even the tiniest breeze. This stirring up is wind which connects and penetrates. As the wind moves the clouds bring flowing streams. As the rain falls come torrents of water flowing with a rushing gurgling sound. These torrents of rushing water come charging down from mountain. Below the ground the roots went deeply down and this was understood as earth. Understanding the seasons, first comes thunder lightning in early spring that wakes the qi of earth mixing sky and earth. had round drums, circular hoops with stretched skin. In this mixing of heaven and earth is a stirring up, and mixing. With the wind comes clouds and with clouds come thunder and lightning. So they made fire to warm themselves. As the rain falls come torrents of water flowing with a rushing gurgling sound. These torrents of rushing water come charging down from mountain and settle in pools low places that are called marsh and lake. The water standing in low places rises like mist into sky and the circle was made returning to sky heaven. Sky, Wind wood, Water Flowing, mountain, earth, thunder, fire, standingwater marsh lake, returning to sky heaven in a sequence. On the drum head they could see and remember the place where the sun rose up and sank down below the horizon. From four directions between each one made eight directions.
In the Chinese ancient classic Daodejing, The Way and Its Power: we read in chapter 3, “Empty the mind, fill the belly.” So what does this mean to empty and fill? Who was this emptying and filling addressed? The author is the Daoist Laozi. Laozi is part of the fundamental heritage of what we call today the bioregion nation China. Laozi is the founder of Daoism. Like most ancient surviving books from this time period the statements are short, pithy and non-specific, generalized statements that could mean manythings, depending on host and guest. The oldest extant examples of the Daodejing date to the second century BCE written on bamboo strips. We know the exact day Laozi was born 2595 years ago, on the 15th day of the second lunar month. His birthday this year is celebrated on the 15th day of the second month of the lunar year rabbit month in the year of green tiger which falls on March 24, 2024 near the vernal equinox. He left his book of Dao with the gate keeper of Hangu pass, near the Yellow river. The sage is identified as Laozi, as an actual state official in China, as part of a wise ruler tradition, who says, ‘empty the mind and fill the belly’. There is a question, is the sage Laozi, advising members of the ruling elite living 2500 years ago, who today might be an elected officials, or a CEO of a business, or a political leader with clout, who was in turn advising the general population to be kept relatively in the dark but well fed? Many translations translate the texts somewhat in this way. Certainly there is truth to keeping people in their city states, well fed to maintain peaceful, productive social conditions and so benefit all. Famine, food shortages, political intrigue certainly don’t bode well for leaders in power, or for the less affluent members of society regardless of what the political system is called. People need to be well fed. Starving paranoid, fearful people won’t have good lives regardless of social strata. Revolutions, although high on the adventure drama world bucket list, don’t particularly bode well for life expectancy and meaningful, stable mundane lives of abundance. Are the concepts in the Daodejing meant for organizing, running large or small groups like a business organization or a family? What does it mean to empty the mind? Empty and fill. Is the sage telling us, eat a hamburger, drink a beer and chill out? Or, eat a salad with greens, nuts and berries, nourish the body in a good way? Who is this sage wise ruler? Is the sage the Genius Wild Herb Ways, the actual bioregion of plant, person, place and prairie speaking in quasi metaphorical terms? Is the genius wild herb ways talking about the belly? The stomach, food, eating, drinking, emptying? Body breath biospirit? So what does any of this mean? What does it mean to talk in short terse often rhyming poetic riddles? The answer is that Laozi’s admonition to , ‘Empty the mind and fill.’, has been taken to mean all of the above. The Daodejing like nearly all existing ancient Asian literature is highly nuanced, and non-specific. It is advice, insight for rulers, leaders, small group management, anyone trying to make sense of difficult situations, and advice for both the actual belly and the mytho-poetic deeper belly of the dantien, solar plexus or hara. Laozi’s writings are a part of a tradition of revelations from meaningful world.
The meaningful world is of course a world of meaning. The biggest issue is that meaning requires smooth connection. We could say that meaning requires meaning. Meaning requires connection. Conversely we could also say meaninglessness requires for human beings to have no sense of connection. Meaning and connection are related. Where there is more connection there is more meaning, where there is less connection there is less meaning. The connection of meaning means a vastness of associations that point at something else. By pointing at something else we are admitting that what we pointed at is connected to us. Children play both the actual game of dominoes, connecting the dots as linked numbers on one side in a connected pattern according to the agreed upon rules of dominoes. Children also play with dominoes as a game based on their physical form. So children arrange the dominoes standing on their side in close proximity so that when one domino is pushed all the dominoes start falling, click, click, click. The world of meaning includes games like regular numeric dominoes and click click knock over game of dominoes. In both instances we are using the same dominoes, yet the same dominoes are seen differently. It is not that the dominoes changed from numeric dominoes to click click dominoes, what has changed is our view. Our meaning lies in connection. When we live in meaningful world everything is meaningful. Our gesture of pointing acknowledges our togetherness in time and space. By pointing we admit our togetherness in meaning, in our us-ness. Because all things are connected, not connected in a theory of connection, but actually connected as connection. If you ask a child, “who is your mommy?”, the child will point at her mother, with a nod of the head, meaning ‘her’. The pointing is that whole six year long connection contained just in that little action gesture of pointing. The mommy is at one time a cooking mommy, chef mommy doing nutritious food preparation. She is a councilor listening mommy. She is nurse mommy with milk filled breasts. She is story reading mommy. She is a clothes washing mommy. She is transportation mommy. She is bread baking mommy. Shoe tying mommy. She is all these different manifestations of mommy. The totality of all those different mommys is contained in one small, simple gesture. The Buddha held up a flower to Makyakashappa, and although his holding a flower in his hand was a flower holding gesture, his holding up a flower was also transmission of the teachings outside the framework, directly person to person and the treasury of the true dharma eye.
The Tree Rotation Diagramm opening the four gates qigong.
Here we have the four major gateways of the body on the fleshy hands and fleshy feet. This is known as opening the four gates qigong. It has been said many times in many different ways, “The hands are aligned to the Lao gong at the center of the fleshy palm, palms of the hand, as leaves and branches aligned east with fire at the rising sun. The earth aligned to the soles of the feet, as roots, aligned north with the yong quan bubbling spring at the fleshy sole of the foot, aligned with flowing nourishing water in the west”. These four points, one on each hand and foot, hand points fleshy palms Lao gong and feet points fleshy sole of foot Yong quan, allow us to conduct and learn energy within the Dao big body universe, and the Dao small body, our personal vehicle for living space. So the hands and feet are learning tools for conducting and directing energy from the big energy field outside to the small energy field inside. This is a way to connect. The connection of the two energy fields is itself meaning because we point, using various symbols, not only the things themselves. The Lao dong on the fleshy palm is the center of our heart and deepest intention because everything we do is accumulated via work with the hands. So in that sense taking responsibility for whatever we have, whatever we are going through, this is our work. Blaming others for mistune is a fundamental mistake that must be corrected. This is the meaning of Lao dong, center of work. From the Lao dong point at the fleshy palm by moving the hands, opening and closing fingers we see the wrists, fore arms, upper arms as creeks, streams and flowing rivers of the universal life force qi.
The Yong quan point is located on the plantar between the second and third toe, just in front forward from the arch, centered in the foot. The foot is a neglected orspecialized organ of the body. The foot alone has 52 bones, one quarter of all the bones in the body are contained in the foot. It is known as a bubbling spring. The Yong quan is a bubbling spring of living water, that circulates upward as kidney energy, yin, cool and dark. We draw in from both hands and feet. It is well known that binding the foot, although considered a kind of erotic keeping of concubines, harms the body. This foot binding of kept concubines is not ancient history in China. Binding the foot harmed women in the past and harms them today in the form of exaggerated shoes, with elevated heels, painting the face with strange colored face paint, that prevents the true face from being seen and appreciated, drenching the scalp with caustic colorants are all to be avoided. Elaborate elevated heeled shoes damage the Yong quan bubbling spring.
Opening the four gates qigong. We synchronize the hands with the feet, the hips with the shoulders, the elbows with the knees. With the hands we pull in, turning the palms and pulling in a rope. We focus on the space between the hands, this is called holding the ball, turning the ball, rotating the ball, squeezing the ball, turning the ball, risingthe ball, lowering the ball and so on
The first story my teacher taught was each day, we are one day closer to death. He would say, “Today you are one day closer to death.” He would say this smiling and everybody would laugh. He told a story of a man being chased. He told a story that was written down by Leo Tolstoy, the 19th century Russian writer: “ “There is an old Eastern fable about a traveler who is taken unawares on the steppes by a ferocious wild animal. In order to escape the beast the traveler hides in an empty well, but at the bottom of the well he sees a dragon with its jaws open, ready to devour him. The poor fellow does not dare to climb out because he is afraid of being eaten by the rapacious beast, neither does he dare drop to the bottom of the well for fear of being eaten by the dragon. So he seizes hold of a branch of a bush that is growing in the crevices of the well and clings on to it. His arms grow weak and he knows that he will soon have to resign himself to the death that awaits him on either side. Yet he still clings on, and while he is holding on to the branch he looks around and sees that two mice, one black and one white, are steadily working their way round the bush he is hanging from, gnawing away at it. Sooner or later they will eat through it and the branch will snap, and he will fall into the jaws of the dragon. The traveler sees this and knows that he will inevitably perish. But while he is still hanging there he sees some drops of honey on the leaves of the bush, stretches out his tongue and licks them. In the same way I am clinging to the tree of life, knowing full well that the dragon of death inevitably awaits me, ready to tear me to pieces, and I cannot understand how I have fallen into this torment. And I try licking the honey that once consoled me, but it no longer gives me pleasure. The white mouse and the black mouse – day and night – are gnawing at the branch from which I am hanging. I can see the dragon clearly and the honey no longer tastes sweet. I can see only one thing; the inescapable dragon and the mice, and I cannot tear my eyes away from them. And this is no fable but the truth, the truth that is irrefutable and intelligible to everyone.
The delusion of the joys of life that had formerly stifled my fear of the dragon no longer deceived me. No matter how many times I am told: you cannot understand the meaning of life, do not thinking about it but live, I cannot do so because I have already done it for too long. Now I cannot help seeing day and night chasing me and leading me to my death. This is all I can see because it is the only truth. All the rest is a lie.
Those two drops of honey, which more than all else had diverted my eyes from the cruel truth, my love for my family and for my writing, which I called art – I no longer found sweet.”
― Leo Tolstoy, A Confession and Other Religious Writings
The Six Harmonies
When practising qigong forms, remember the Six Harmonies. These will allow for good structure in stance, good flow of energy and will result in smooth and continuous movements
External Harmonies
1) The hands harmonise with the feet
2) The hips harmonise with the shoulders
3) The elbows harmonise with the knees
Internal Harmonies
1) The heart harmonises with the intention
2) The intention harmonises with the Qi
3) The Qi harmonises with the movement
Baguazhang? Otherwise known as Pa Kua Chang, Bagwa Jang 8 trigram palm qigong.
There is constant change. Those who embrace changes and adapt will be successful. Those who resist changes and cannot adapt will be left behind. Adapting to changes is going with vital force, with life force, with Dao. Not adapting is going against vital force, against life force, against Dao and according to the Dao Te Jing, to go against vital force Dao is death.
An important point the Yi Jing teaches us is that everything has a center. The center of our solar system is the sun and everything rotates around the sun. Our earth has a central axis and rotates around that 24 hours a day. A hurricane has an eye, which is the center and everything rotates around that center. Our body is a microcosm of the natural universe. Our spine could be called a center and your body rotates around that. Your Dan Tian is a center. Within your body you have other centers, shoulders, elbows, knees, wrists, ankles and neck. You can rotate the areas of the body around these centers. This is a Baguaxhang principle.
Baguaxhang principle
Spring Summer Late Summer Autumn Winter
Wood Fire Earth Metal Water
Yin Liver Heart Spleen Lungs Kidneys
Yang Gall Bl Sm Intest Stomach Lrg Intest Urinary Bladder
Anger hatred blame trust sarcasm arrogance
“Don’t blame others” like a boomerang that comes back to hit us. This is what I did to blame others. Negative emotions blame, hate, anger, sarcasm, are stored in the bones and organ tissues. There is a hierarchy of intention, mind, shen guiding matter. Love releases energy in the body.
Five Phase Element Relationships
By Wan Minying
14th Century1
Translated by Heiner Fruehauf
National University of Natural Medicine, College of Classical Chinese Medicine
“Metal is generated by Earth; if there is too much earth, Metal will be buried. Earth is generated by Fire; if there is too much Fire, Earth will be charred. Fire is generated by Wood; if there is too much Wood, Fire will flare. Wood is generated by Water; if there is too much Water, Wood will be washed away. Water is generated by Metal; if there is too much Metal, Water will be grimy.
Metal can generate Water; if there is too much Water, Metal will drown. Water can generate Wood; if Wood is in abundance, Water will be in short supply. Wood can generate Fire; if there is too much Fire, Wood will be incinerated. Fire can generate Earth; if there is too much Earth, Fire will be obscured. Earth can generate Metal; if there is too much Metal, Earth will spoil.
Metal can control Wood; if Wood is flinty, Metal will be marred. Wood can control Earth; if Earth is thick, Wood will break. Earth can control Water; if Water is too much, Earth will erode. Water can control Fire; if Fire is ablaze, Water will sizzle. Fire can control Metal; if Metal is too much, Fire will become smothered.
If exhausted Metal comes upon Fire, it will melt. If weak Fire encounters Water, it will become quenched. If weak Water encounters Earth, it will be filled in and become stuck. If weak Earth comes upon Wood, it will cave in. If weak Wood encounters Metal, it will be axed.
If excess Metal receives Water, it will in turn have its edge blunted. If excess Water receives Wood, it will in turn have its momentum drained. If excess Wood receives Fire, it will in turn have its denseness transformed. If excess Fire receives Earth, it will in turn have its blazing quality checked. If excess Earth receives Metal, it will in turn have its calamitous potential restricted.” © 2007 Heiner Fruehauf
The Constructive Cycle:
Wood feeds Fire
Fire creates Earth
Earth creates Metal
Metal enriches Water
Water makes Wood
If this cycle is reversed, each element is then reduced or destroyed by another element:
The Destructive Cycle:
Fire destroys Wood
Wood consumes Water
Water destroys (rusts) Metal
Metal consumes Earth
Earth smothers Fire
If the cycle is seen another way, the elements can be seen to control one another:
The Controlling Cycle
Fire controls (or melts) Metal
Metal controls Wood
Wood controls Earth
Earth controls Water
Water controls Fire
These relationships are at the base of Chinese Medicine. No system or organ operates without affecting all the others. When one organ is out of balance, it affects all the others. The balance can be determined by hot, cold, damp, dry, Yin or Yang. Emotions, diet, environment and genetics can affect the way the organs function.
Based on the Five Elements, each element gives rise to a different energy or frequency in the body. During gestation, these energies guide the fetal organs to be formed, supported by the mother’s energy channels. As the new Soul inhabits the body, these qualities also form spiritual qualities housed in and guarded by the Five Yin (solid) organs. The relationships between the organs and the emotions form the basis for the integration of Body, Mind and Spirit in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). The emotional/spiritual qualities of the Five Elements are:
Fire—Order—the Heart
Earth—Trust—the Spleen Liver
Metal—Integrity—the Lungs
Water—Wisdom—the Kidneys
Wood—Compassion—the Liver
After birth, these pure qualities must struggle to manifest in the human being because, as we live our lives, we inevitably encounter difficulties, traumas and hardships which cause other energies or frequencies to manifest in our bodies in the form of toxic emotions and thoughts. The organs are thought to hold these toxic thoughts and emotions. These strong emotions cause Qi stagnation which can lead to disease.
In TCM, Qi or vital energy moves the fluids in the body (blood, lymph, waste products). Therefore, as the Qi is stagnant, so the movement of vital fluids is impeded. As the Qi is impeded, the organ’s function is diminished.
Each organ holds different emotions. These emotions have different frequencies and affect the Qi differently:
Fire—Heart—Anxiety, Over-joy
Earth—Spleen—Worry, Mistrust, Obsession
Metal—Lungs—Grief, Sorrow, Shame, Remorse
Water—Kidneys—Fear, Loneliness
Wood—Liver—Anger, Rage, Resentment
Wood—(Yin) Liver-(Yang) Gall Bladder
Fire—(Yin) Heart-(Yang) Small Intestines
Earth—(Yin) Spleen-(Yang) Stomach
Metal—(Yin) Lungs-(Yang) Large Intestines
Water—(Yin) Kidneys-(Yang) Urinary Bladder
- Spring/Wood is the (Yin)Liver and the (Yang)Gall Bladder.
- Summer/Fire is the (Yin)Heart and (Yang)Small Intestines, and also the (Yin)Pericardium and (Yang)Triple Heater.
- Late Summer/Earth is the (Yin)Spleen-Pancreas and the (Yang)Stomach.
- Fall/Metal is the (Yin)Lungs and the (yang)Large Intestine.
- Winter/Water is the (Yin)Kidneys and the (yang)Bladder.
Although in the West we consider there to be four seasons, in Daoism there are five. The Familiar Western sequence is Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter; however, in the Daoist view it is considered that the period of Late-Summer (sometimes called Indian Summer) is a separate and distinct season of its own, the point of balance and harmony
The Five Element Theory
The Five Elements, earth, fire, water, metal and wood were selected by the sages of long ago to describe patterns and relationships between many variables. They relate to one another in an abstract sense and can be used to describe the relationship between the seasons and many other aspects of our lives, as well as the human body. The Five Element theory is one of the major systems of thought within Traditional Chinese Medicine and is used when practising acupuncture. But the Theory is also used as a guide to help balance our emotional and physical health. Based on the Taoist theory that each of us is a microcosm of the universe, it stands to reason that the human body will experience similar cyclical patterns as in nature, such as the baguazhang eight trigram qigong of seasons and the cycle of life and death.
The Yi Jing, is considered an ancient classic. The most ancient portion of the book is a diagram which could be written on a single page, with extensive elaborations written over numerous centuries, so the ancient book, with elaborations, is extensive with numerous layers. As a reflective foundational book, the book of changes, describes patterns occurring in a specific bioregion, observed by specific people in that specific place. The Yi Jing records the perception of being in the ecosystem and in that sense predates the application of culture, and later medicine of that Asian biospirit. So the Yi Jing asserts the Dao, the undivided, undifferentiated being wushi splitting into two, yin and yang, the vital force qi moving in the visible observations as fluid cyclic patterns of change. The 8 bagua are described there, the one, into two, into the three, as arrangements of a yin broken line, and a yang unbroken line. The bagua are made up of three possible determinants of x or y, (-) (+). yin(-) yang(+) as eight numeric mathematical, logical possibilities. So yin(-) yin(-) yin(-), yin(-) yin(-) yang(+), yin yang yang and so on, totally eight. Each of these combinations are then named and associated as symbols arranged in 8 sequences of change. Heaven/sky, earth, thunder, water, mountain, wind, fire and lake/marsh. With regard to herbal medicine, any one herb is the yin and yang as the biospirit of plants. Plants contain the self thus aspect of fundamental self-replicating intelligence as plants in a similar way as human beings. When describing Chinese herbal medicine, plants are prescribed as groups of plants in a formula. When looking at the human body, the organs are depicted as one of the Five Elements, and in a healthy body all organs are functioning efficiently and in harmony. Two primary forces (yin and yang) interact in the body and hopefully there is a balance between these two forces within the body.
King Wen ‘Later Heaven’ Bagua arrangement
乾 Qián 天 Heaven Summer Creative 父 Father 南 South Expansive energy, the sky. 巽 Xùn 風 Wind Summer Gentle 長女 Eldest Daughter 西南 Southwest Gentle penetration, flexibility. 坎 Kǎn 水 Water Autumn Abysmal 中男 Middle Son 西 West Danger, rapid rivers, the abyss, the moon. 艮Gèn 山 Mountain Autumn Still 少男 Youngest Son 西北 Northwest Stillness, immovability. 坤Kūn 地 Earth Winter Receptive 母 Mother 北 North Receptive energy, that which yields. 震Zhèn 雷 Thunder Winter Arousing 長男 Eldest Son 東北 Northeast Excitation, revolution, division. 離Lí 火 Fire Spring Clinging 中女 Middle Daughter 東 East Rapid movement, radiance, the sun. 兌Duì 澤 Lake Spring Joyous 少女 Youngest Daughter 東南 Southeast Joy, satisfaction, stagnation. King Wen "Later Heaven"
The Five Element Theory explains the relationship between the organs and the way energy travels to the organs (through meridians), and how the chi, or energy, originates from the kidneys. The kidney's job is to filter blood, which is then circulated through the body.
Chi energy is associated with the kidneys because they are said to hold opposing fire and water energy. An imbalance in these two elements will affect other organs. In a healthy body, organs are working in harmony, with all elements in a balanced state. In an unhealthy body, organs are not functioning effectively, which has a spiralling effect on the other organs.
When practising tai chi and qigong, much of the meditation involves focusing on the belly where the dantien and mingmen are located. These directly nourish the nearby kidneys. The movements of taichi and qigong rotate and massage this area, thereby balancing the kidneys which allow a flow on effect to other organs. Tai chi is designed in-part to nourish and support the activity of the kidneys.
Below is a flow chart (from Spring Forest Qigong) showing the relationship between the five elements. The outer arrows around the diagram represents the nurturing or supporting relationship between the neighbouring elements: Wood nurtures Fire, Fire (or ash) enriches Earth, Earth contains Metal, Metal condenses Water and Water feeds wood. The dotted lines within the diagram illustrate the cooperative or controlling relationship of two 'opposing' elements: Wood penetrates Earth, Earth limits the flow of water, Water extinguishes Fire, Fire melts Metal and Metal cuts Wood. The diagram also shows other aspects of our lives that are influenced by the five elements.
“Kidney water reverses its course.”The lower mind, or the lower Tan Tien is in the lower abdomen and this is where our awareness resides. It is also the place to generate Chi. The middle mind, or the middle Tan Tien, is centered in the heart. The upper Tan Tien, resides in the brain.“Transform Jing lower(Sexual Energy) into Qi middle hara(Life Force Energy) and Qi into Shen upper, head (Spirit Energy).” The first step is to make a connection with the North Star and the Big Dipper’s violet/red light ultra violet which is one of the most powerful heavenly lights. Through this practice, learning to feel Chi and using the mind/eye/heart power (Yi-2) to guide the Chi flow through the primary energy routes in your body is the foundation of Taoist meditation. The order of the organs healing sound is: lungs, kidneys, liver, heart, soleen and Triple Warmer. Triple Burner (or Triple Warmer or Triple Heater) ‘three burning spaces’. San Jiao,has no exact counter part in anatomy, only correspondence. One of the main functions of the Triple Warmer is regulating the movement of water within the body. According to Chinese medicine, water behaves differently in the three different burners. The upper burner is located above the diaphragm and includes the heart and lungs. Its function is the dispersal of fluid throughout the body. This fluid is in the form of mist or vapour.
The middle burner includes the area above the naval and below the diaphragm, including the spleen and stomach. Its main function is digestion 632and the distribution of nutrients throughout the body.
The lower burner is located below the naval and includes the liver, kidneys, large intestine, small intestine, and bladder. It separates food and drink waste. Useful fluids are absorbed, with the remainder transported to the bladder.
Triple warmer, functional medicine, inter webbed. We as a microcosm are interwebbed. Our body is one with the macrocosm. All the constituents are connected and will with time be reduced. I am the alpha and omega, beginning and end, I am the source. A dragon with a pig’s snout eating its tail, the dragon is a pig, incredibly fertile, a living garbage can who transmits into new life. Wu wei, the master in the experience of pure sound, where the music is wu wei. Northern hemisphere November 1- December 1, hexagram 2 k'un, six yin broken lines. Oneness with the source. Feeling oneness with the ocean, becoming a cup, molecule of water in the ocean. The ocean, to submerge into unity with the ocean, as the pericardium. Resting the fire organs. sea, the headwaters of an ecosystem. Quiet time of year, energy goes underground, followed by winter solstice. Triple burner is the grave. The story of source energy 9pm-11pm. Time of triple burner. The job of triple burner is rest, subvergence, ideally go to bed by 9pm, to avoid adrenal exhaustion. The time for rest is the first part of night 9-midnight, the most important cycle of sleep. Oneness, fully in the flow, in the place of doing nothing. The pure energy of the universe. Yin Yang not only describes polar opposites but transformative processes. Different than linear process, the spleen the generator of energy, gets cold and damp easily. Kidney mystery, dark. The triple warmer is continuum of life force, the energy, in the ground ebbing and flowing. So the darkest yin month is true yang month. Compressed as a seed, a physical dot. All the energy is here. The triple warmer is the connection of the various systems, a web like system, a net, a tree upside down, visuallizing the roots, lymph, nervous system, endocrine system. While it’s true water moves, it doesn’t move exactly like isolated water moving in pipe. The water is outside the cell, the empty spaces holding water. When drilling a well for water, or oil, it’s not that the water is existing only as an underground lake, not only as a pool, the water is in the seemingly solid rock, the rock contains water. So a well is a vertical empty structure hollowed into the ground, the water moves through the visibly seeming rock at great pressure. The well is a drawing, subtracting negative space that attracts the oil, attracts he water, then it is pumped out. Water in the body is likewise contained in the bones, contained everywhere in the body but not exactly as pure, see through transparent water you see in a glass. It’s rather moisture. Kidney water, bone water, brain water, lung water, liver water, gall bladder water and so on, but not clear free standing water. So the triple warmer is this interconnected system of relationships happening, ebbing and flowing in the body. 12 spokes makes up the wheel, but it is the empty space, the hub that attains its full function. Go to bed early. Know that activity on the surface is generated by rest. Likewise at the spine, in immobility movement is generated. Power is generated from the core at the spine. Empty time, vacation. Letting universal action complete the action rather than a reckless doing from the ego small self, which creates exhaution. So resting appropriately where replenishment occurs. If the well is always pumped it goes dry, letting he water table recharge the invisible underground aquifer. Rest is the key to action.
Inner Smile: We begin the inner smile by activating a memory. This is your happy time memory. Close your eyes and visualize a blue cloudless sky.
